Vormann, Boris (2014):
"Infrastrukturen der globalen Stadt." Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien 34: 62-86.
Journal Article
Abstract

Using Vancouver, BC, as a case study, this paper explores the development of sociospatial dynamics in global cities with a specific emphasis on changing logistics infrastructures. Since the mid-1970s, urban and regional planners have reconfigured spatial patterns of global cities in order to facilitate global flows of containerized goods more efficiently, flexibly and reliably. At the same time, in a context of volatile and global financial capitalism, derelict old port areas in the inner-cities of cities around the world have been redeveloped and re-valued to attract investor and tourist dollars to ‘historic’ districts and ‘old ports.’ In Vancouver, the post-industrial Waterfront epitomizes promises of a more sustainable, livable, and leisurely city – understood in public and urban planning discourses as the exact opposite of its industrial past. This analysis finds that, rather than resolving the pathologies, risks, and liabilities of the industrial age the costs of the new accumulation regime have simply been relocated and externalized.